Menoux, Joseph De

Menoux, Joseph De a French Jesuit, was born October 14, 1695, at Besancon. He belonged to an ecclesiastical family, and, destined for the Church, he entered the Society of Jesus at an early age, studied the classics at different colleges, and applied himself with success to preaching. He obtained the confidence of king Stanislas, who appointed him preacher and superior of the seminary of missions for Lorraine. He is represented as a man of mind, intriguing and serviceable, a useful friend and a dangerous enemy.' Voltaire says that he persuaded pope Benedict XIV, the author of some large treatises in folio on the canonization of the saints, that he should translate them into French. He sent several pages of it to him, and obtained a good benefice for his 'seminary, of which the Benedictines were robbed. Voltaire, who in his secret correspondence calls Menoux a false brother, was assured of the protection of the learned Jesuit in all circumstances; but the alliance established between them was not sincere on either side. Menoux was one of the first members of the Academy of Nancy, and was associated with those of the Arcades of Rome. He wrote: Notions Philosophiques des writes fondamentales de la Religion, ouvrage didactique d'un ordre nouveau (7th edition, revised and corrected; Nancy, 1758, 8vo. This work appeared at first under the title of Defi geneial a l'incredulite. "There are few," says Freron, "so methodical, so clear, so precise, so consistent"): Heures du Chretien, a l'usage des Missions (Nancy, 1741, 12mo): — Discours prononce en 1753 a ha seance publique de la Societe Litteraire de Nanci (ibid. 1753, 4to; translated into Italian by order of pope Benedict XIV) i-Coup d'eiil sus l'ari'et du'Parlement de Paris concernant l'institut des Jesuites (Avignon, 1761, in two parts, 8vo). Menoux is regarded as the author of this writing, signed by P. Griffet, and he furnished to Cerutti the materials for L'Apologie generale de l'institut des Jesuites. He was a co- laborer in the moral and religious works of Stanislas. See Freron, Anne litteraire, 1753, 1758; Durival, Descript. de la Lorractine, 1:236; J. J. Rousseau, Confessions, bk. viii.